


Fiddly

by NomadicSecret



Category: Leverage, The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossover, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-10
Updated: 2013-08-10
Packaged: 2017-12-22 23:49:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/919490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NomadicSecret/pseuds/NomadicSecret
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AWN flagship news anchor Nathan Ford's veneer of affability was shattered by a statistics-filled tirade at a journalism school panel, and News Division head Archie Leach manages the fallout by bringing home his 'daughter' and her team: senior producer Jim Sterling and on-camera talent Sophie Devereaux as Nate's new co-anchor. It goes over about as well as you'd think - if you knew Nate Ford.<br/>Basically, Parker frustrates people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fiddly

**Author's Note:**

> When I can't sleep I like to plug the characters of one world into another, and I was writing out a list of Newsroom characters to figure out the equivalencies: Charlie, Will, Mac, Jim, Maggie, Don, Elliot .... hang on a second. So I went forward with the stipulation that Jim = Sterling, Maggie = Maggie, Elliot = Eliot. I had flipped the 'kids' and 'adults' of Leverage but try as I might, I couldn't make Hardison be mean enough to work as Will, so now it's kind of mixed up. Jim and Maggie are quite a bit younger than Nate and Sophie, and Parker and Hardison are five-ten years older than their Leverage timelines. Certain relationships are drastically affected by the different backstories.

_“Sharon, the NEA is a loser. Yeah, it accounts for a penny out of our paycheck, but he gets to hit you with it anytime he wants. It doesn’t cost money, it costs votes. It costs airtime and column inches. You know why people don’t like liberals? Because they lose. If liberals are so fucking smart, how come they lose so goddamn always?” He turned to the Republican panelist, ignoring her protest. “And with a straight face, you’re gonna tell students that America is so star-spangled awesome that we’re the only ones in the world who have freedom? Canada has freedom. Japan has freedom. The UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Belgium has freedom! And all of them have greater social mobility than the United States. So, 207 sovereign states in the world, like 180 of them have freedom.” He turned away from the man grasping for a response. “And yeah, you… sorority girl. Just in case you accidentally wander into a voting booth one day, there’s some things you should know. One of them is: there’s absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we’re the greatest country in the world. We’re 7th in literacy, 27th in math, 22nd in science, 49th in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, 3rd in median household income, number 4 in labor force and number 4 in exports. We lead the world in only three categories: number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending, where we spend more than the next 26 countries combined, 25 of whom are allies. Now, none of this is the fault of a 20-year-old college student, but you are without a doubt a member of the Worst-period-Generation-period-Ever-period, so when you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about! Yosemite?!_ _” There was silence._

_“It sure used to be… We stood up for what was right. We fought for moral reasons. We passed laws, struck down laws, for moral reasons. We waged wars on poverty, not on poor people. We sacrificed, we cared about our neighbors, we put our money where our mouths were and we never beat our chest. We built great, big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases and we cultivated the world’s greatest artists AND the world’s greatest economy. We reached for the stars, acted like men. We aspired to intelligence, we didn’t belittle it. It didn’t make us feel inferior. We didn’t identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election and we didn’t scare so easy. We were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed… by great men, men who were revered. First step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one. America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.” He turned to the moderator. “Enough?”_

 

 

 

Parker had a way of sneaking in and out of rooms like a cat burglar, but Archie was familiar with it, so he didn’t start when he looked up and she was sitting across the desk from him playing with a paperweight.

“How are you, kiddo?” he asked fondly.

“Archie, I’m hardly a kid,” Parker laughed. Archie studied her carefully, looking for the effects of the years of harsh weather, of near-constant danger in active conflict zones … and way too many funerals for a girl her age. He wondered sometimes if he’d done her a disservice when he’d found her in that Egyptian marketplace picking pockets. With her blonde hair and knowing blue eyes, she stuck out like a sore thumb, and he knew a street kid when he saw one. Perhaps he should have taken her back to the US and found her a real family, or handed her over to the Egyptian authorities, rather than dragging her around the world on assignments. Parker had taken to it like a duck to water, and he couldn’t be prouder if she was his own flesh-and-blood, but there were moments that he wished the hard, important, scary stories could be covered by someone else’s daughter.

“You look exhausted,” he said finally.

“Of course I’m exhausted. I’ve been exhausted since I was thirty. Everyone’s exhausted.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re here now. I’ve got a job for you, but it’s going to take some subtlety.”

“I can be subtle!”

 

 

 

“I heard Parker blew up his parents’ house.”

“Foster-parents.”

“I heard they were inside!”

“I heard it was a trailer.”

“Nah, they were rich.”

“That’s because they found gold underneath the trailer,” Eliot said solemnly. The staffers jumped and turned with wide eyes filled with a combination of guilt and wonder. “I’ve seen Parker jump off buildings,” he added. “That’s ten pounds of crazy in a five pound bag.” The staffers looked at each other in wonder. If the news divisions of the four major networks voted on ‘Most Likely to’s like high school seniors, foreign correspondent-newly-turned-anchor Eliot Spencer would undoubtedly be ‘Most Likely to run into a burning/collapsing building’, ‘Most Likely to liberate a country’ and ‘Most Likely to have a superhero alter-ego’, so his evaluation carried weight.

“And don’t even get me started on Parker’s senior producer,” he added, a twinkle in his eye.

“I heard he spent three days in the trunk of a car just to get a story,” Maggie said with awe.

“It was five,” corrected a British-accented stranger. Everyone except Eliot jumped and turned to face him. “I’d heard you’d been domesticated, but I never imagined you’d fall this far,” he said, addressing Eliot. The American rubbed his thumb along the shiny new wedding band he now wore.

“How did he get there?” somebody whispered.

“Who _is_ that?” added someone else.

“Jim Sterling. He does that,” Eliot said. They scattered like startled pigeons. “It’s nice to see you, man,” he said once they had relative privacy. “Especially when you’re not hanging from your ankles in some warlord’s secret prison. You’re welcome, by the way.”

“Does your wife know how many times I’ve saved your arse from angry lovers?” Sterling replied.

“That was once and she didn’t say she had a boyfriend!”

“Who was a bloody Navy Seal,” Sterling muttered.

“Anyway, that’s all over now. So what are you doing here? Don’t tell me the rumours are true.”

“Archie was Parker’s mentor. He calls….” Sterling shrugged.

“Can I get you anything?” Maggie asked. “Water? Coffee?”

“No, thank you,” Sterling replied.

“So you were embedded?” she asked, sounding a bit breathless.

 

 

 

“I can’t approve her hiring. Parker – she’s crazy.”

“She’s won multiple Peabodies. I know it’s been some time since you were in the field, but the drive to get the story … well, it is difficult for civilians to understand.” Archie smirked slightly.

Nate scowled. “She’s indifferent to ratings, competition, corporate concerns and generally speaking, consequences, socially she’s barely functional, she’s-”

“My daughter,” Archie cut in calmly, hiding a smirk of satisfaction when Nate cut his own rant off. “Not my biological daughter, of course, but … Parker is my legacy. I taught her everything I know and I unleashed her on the world. And you are very, very lucky that she has agreed to come and work at News Night. Besides which, I don’t need your approval.”

“I don’t have contractual approval?”

“No, but-”

“ _I_ don’t have contractual approval?” Nate repeated. He slammed his hands down on the desk and stood. “We’ll see about that.” Archie watched him go without protest. It wouldn’t go his way, and Archie didn’t have any particular desire to bear the brunt of the alcoholic anchor’s ire. He did, however, pick up the phone to warn Nate’s long-suffering assistant Maggie, who thanked him for the heads-up with just a hint of a sigh.

 

 

 

Parker wove through the newsroom of frantic young producers and staffers scrambling to cover the BP oil spill to appear in front of Sterling. “When was the last time you were in love with a woman?” she demanded.

“Please hold,” Sterling said, and slammed the phone down. “What?” he hissed, looking around at who might be in earshot.

“You know how you’ve always had a bit of a crush on me?” she asked.

“I haven’t!”

“Sure you have. It’s been useful…. I mean cute.”

He covered his face with both hands. “I don’t understand why you’ve chosen this moment to lose it!” The contracts weren’t even signed yet, damn it. Tonight was basically a tryout.

“Look over there,” Parker instructed.

“Don’t point!” He caught her hand before looking and then saw that it was Maggie.

“Whatever. See her? Bang! Cupid!”

Sterling cleared his throat. “Is this going anywhere other than _white coats_?”

“That’s Maggie. She’s likes you.”

“I wish I were back in Fallujah,” he said quietly. “Why do you suddenly care about my love life?”

She shrugged. “Archie said I should get a hobby.”

“And you chose matchmaking? Oh, God.” He covered his eyes with his hand and groaned.

“Hey!” she said defensively. “Remember the gun-runner in Belgrade? I basically set him up with that con artist.”

“After stabbing him with a bloody fork!”

“It wasn’t bloody until after I stabbed him. Otherwise that would be really unsanitary, Jim.” Parker frowned at him. He rubbed his temples. She was fucking with him. She _had_ to be fucking with them. They’d only worked together for four _bloody_ years. She was the ‘daughter’ of Archie _bloody_ Leach. She understood British slang, damnit! “In stabbing someone with a fork you forfeit all rights to giving relationship advice.”

Eliot joined them. “Is this about the time she jumped out a window?”

“It was only the third story,” she scoffed.

“ _The_ time?” Sterling muttered. “Does Sophie know about this?”

“Sophie’s getting ready for the show.”

“Perhaps we should join that endeavour, hmm? I have to get back to the EPA, now, unless you’ve got something else?” Sterling smiled sarcastically at his boss.

“I fucking hate Serbia,” she grumbled, before turning and walking away.

 

 

 

“Well, we survived our first show. Now where are we?” Parker demanded briskly.

“I think we should stay on deregulation. The spill isn’t the only disaster that could have been averted,” Jim said. He was leaning back in his chair, surveying the table from his position at Parker’s right hand.

“You want to talk about the economy?” Tara scoffed. “Right. Because everyone in America is going to follow that story. That’s what they want to hear on the evening news.”

“It’s what they ought to be hearing about,” Jim argued, leaning forward.

“Because Americans love being told what to do. The Nate and Sophie ‘Eat your Vegetables Hour’.”

“Are we even equipped to cover that?” Maggie asked. “Nate’s great with numbers, but he’s a lawyer, not an economist.”

“I already scouted a guy from the financials news shows. Asked him to come in today.”

“Okay. What else?”

“There’s the immigration bill in Arizona?” Maggie suggested.

“What about defense spending? Nate mentioned it in his … at Northwestern. The defense budget is untouchable for politicians even though it’s completely out of control.”

 

 

 

Sterling was walking with Parker to her office when she abruptly cut herself off, staring with wide eyes at the tall young black man he recognised as Alec Hardison, the finance guy he’d scouted.

“Alec,” Parker said shakily.

“Parker,” he replied, his voice tightly controlled and even.

“It’s … it’s been awhile.”

“We both know why,” he replied. The entire newsroom was by now watching their producer.

“Let’s go into my office,” she suggested.

“Fine,” he agreed. They went in and shut the door behind them.

“What was that about?” Maggie asked Jim. He just shook his head. He hadn’t a bloody clue.

 

“I want to give you five minutes a night to talk about the economy,” Parker said, leaping into business.

“We’re not going to talk about it?”

“I think the economy is really important right now. A lot of people don’t understand what’s going on or how we got here, and-”

“I looked for you, you know.”

She finally looked up from her notes, opening and shutting her mouth without making any audible noise. “Have you picked a lock?” she finally managed.

“Why would you ask me that? This is racial, isn’t it? This is about my eth-ni-ti-city. It’s cause I’m Jewish?” Parker laughed. Hardison watched her with fond eyes and stayed silent when she had finished.

“I think people are like locks,” she explained. “Really complicated and frustrating … but you can’t force them. You have to … take your time and be fiddly.”

“Fiddly?” Her eyes dropped back to her papers. “Look, you can do this with another analyst. I can give you some names – my professors, people better qualified than I am.”

“They’re not going to have your charisma,” Parker said, shaking her head. “If I’m going to get viewers to listen to stuff about the economy, I need someone who can make exposition seem interesting.”

“Okay. I’ll, uh, write up some notes on some possible topics and get them to you.”

“Thanks.” Parker nodded. He stood to leave but hesitated in the doorway.

“Fiddly, huh?” He grinned. “You know, I used to play violin. I was a child prodigy.”

**Author's Note:**

> I am inexplicably attached to Sterling and for some reason I love the idea of him and Eliot being friends with each other and Parker. Probably because they're both so frustrated by her and each other and so funny when they're frustrated. I have some vague ideas for what happens in the future but no promises.


End file.
